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Germans reconsider their draft

With austerity the word of the day in Germany, German defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg has been discussing the possibility of cost savings through phasing out his country’s draconian, anti-freedom military conscription program. Der Spiegel did two pieces highly relevant to this discussion today.

The first is an interview with the former Social Democrat defense minister about conscription. Listen to this arrogant old fool:

Scharping: No. Making cuts is the wrong measure for our foreign and security policy. Our contribution to common security has to be fitting to Germany’s size and its economic might. With all due respect: We are not Luxembourg.

Ugh. Better to keep violating the rights of young men than let your nation lose a bit of prestige, I guess. His other “great” reason for supporting conscription is that it gives everyone a personal stake in the well-being of the armed forces–e.g. if your son is in the army, you are less likely to support unnecessary wars. Though I do think some of America’s arm-chair warmongers would probably be much less bloodthirsty if their kids were on patrol in Afghanistan, it isn’t reason enough to violate the rights and liberties of our citizens.

I much more enjoyed the other feature on conscription, which was a profile of conscript life. It was generally good, except for this line:

Seen in a positive light, compulsory military service is a gigantic, nine-month-long party for a bunch of young men

But it isn’t a party. It is a government telling its citizens that it owns their lives, that they owe the state a part of their limited time on earth just for the privilege of living there. Conscripts might be horribly bored and they might make the best of it through games and parties and Youtube videos, but the fact remains that their rights have been violated in a way inconsistent with a Western understanding of human rights and liberties.

This anecdote was my favorite:

At least he didn’t suffer the fate of a recruit in a transport battalion in western Germany, who was assigned to guard a telephone and answer official calls coming in to the phone. It was a monotonous task, because the phone never rang — for weeks on end. It wasn’t until a supervisor had the office furniture moved around that the soldier noticed the outlet behind a cupboard. As it turned out, the phone wasn’t even plugged in.